Quotations encapsulate messages that can inspire and motivate us to live a meaningful life. They may strike a chord in our hearts and make us change our attitudes or approach towards life. Therefore, it is worthwhile to memorise some of the quotations we like and repeat them to ourselves from time to time or on appropriate occasions when we need certain pertinent reminders.

It is good to ponder over the messages the words convey and consider how we can apply them in our everyday life. Here I would like to share with you some of my favourite quotes. I hope you will find them as helpful and instructive as I do.

“So tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - Mary Oliver

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” - Winston Churchill

“Change your attitude and you change your life.” – Author unknown

“Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances." - Viktor Frankl

“One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life.”

- Chinese proverb

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before. - Jacob A. Riis

“There are two types of people - those who come into a room and say, ‘Well, here I am!’ and those who come in and say, ‘Ah, there you are.” - Frederick L. Collins

“Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you - not because they are nice, but because you are.” - Author unknown

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” - Joseph Campbell

“You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.” - James A. Froude

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” - George Bernard Shaw

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." - Helen Keller

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” - Leo F. Buscaglia

“A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.” - Charles H. Spurgeon